Played at Hansen Dam with two friends and paired up with a single this past Friday. Walked the blue tees with a push cart so I think the total was around $55. Unfortunately they were charging Holiday ... Continue »

Played at Hansen Dam with two friends and paired up with a single this past Friday. Walked the blue tees with a push cart so I think the total was around $55. Unfortunately they were charging Holiday rates for Thanksgiving even though it was Friday. What can you do?

I found the course to be in pretty good condition but with some questionable pin placements, namely the par 3 4th, where the pin was right in the middle of the most sloped part of the green so every ball would roll back down 20 feet. Utterly stupid PGA Tour type placement on a busy holiday for amateurs. The backup on the hole was three deep because of it.

In terms of conditions, they were mostly good but of course you're not going to find Augusta out here. Fairways were mostly in good shape but certainly some thin or muddy lies to be found (a day after the rains). Nothing worse than hitting a great drive and finding your ball in a dirt patch in the middle of the fairway. Rough was a mashup of long and short depending on distance from the fairway. Tee boxes were in some rough shape in some spots, especially the 10th which was basically just dirt. Sand looked okay but I never was in it.

Greens were rolling pretty well but there were some dried out areas on the edges. They were not particularly fast but held their lines pretty well despite some bumpiness that Keven alluded to in his last review. I thought they held shots pretty well though onto the green so that was nice. Not a lot of tricked out reads to make at Hansen, either.

Busy Friday but no cart service whatsoever was disappointing, but at least the water fountains throughout the course provided good, clean and cold water. And hopefully they've decided to keep the nines in this order and not reverse them again as the current setup is superior to the old one without a doubt.

Played here today with 3 others from Meetup.com, teeing off at around 9:44, finishing in about 5 hours. It seemed like the course and parking lot was not too full, but it did play somewhat slow. The g... Continue »

Played here today with 3 others from Meetup.com, teeing off at around 9:44, finishing in about 5 hours. It seemed like the course and parking lot was not too full, but it did play somewhat slow. The group I played with today were all riders, so I rode in a cart. It was $53 to ride.

It looks like the course is doing something different with the white and yellow tees, moving them up to the fairway. Maybe it's temporary, maybe not. Most of it played like temporary tees. The USGA plates have been moved, but the scorecard yardage is not exactly corresponding to the new yardages on several holes. They will need new cards for this. This will allow more separation from the blue and black tees for sure.

Greens: They were soft, slow, and somewhat bumpy.

Fairways and rough: Lots of semi-dormant kikuyu grass. Soft conditions everywhere. It was very easy to take huge divots or chunk fat shots. I did see some areas roped off and deep tire tracks in some areas.

Bunkers: I did not have to hit from any, but they looked okay with plenty of medium-brown sand that was more or less raked. My playing partners had no problems hitting from the sand, so I'd say it was good.

Tees: We played forward tees, using the white and yellow tees. For the most part, the blacks and blues were same as always: mostly level and plenty of good areas to hit from. The white and yellow tees were like teeing up on scalped rough in most areas. Some of the white tees were simply moved up to the forward teeing ground; other areas the whites and yellows were like playing ahead of the tees in the rough.

Overall, this course looks like it's going through another transition. Customer service was one guy at the starter window checking golfers in. The snack bar had a kid who did not know how to use the register very well, which earned him some extra change from me since I did not want to wait for a manager to help him a second time.

I like the course, but I would wait to play here again any time soon. Maybe last week's weather softened things up too much and they could not cut the greens closer. Maybe the new forward teeing grounds have to be made more permanent. Maybe I just need to move back to the blue or black tees.

We can update all that. Looks like the scorecard on the Hansen Dam website has not been updated. Can you take a look at the card on the Hansen Dam site and tell me if its as simple as flipping the nines. Is hole 9 now a par 3? Odd because the scorecard says par 4 but the layout view looks like a par...

I suppose some could actually go for the green, but for most of us it's a dogleg left. A straight shot about a 200 yds out to the middle of the bowl at the end of the fairway puts you on a fairly flat lie for your second shot up the hill to the green. Don't be too ambitious with your drive or you'll go too far and have an awkward lie with the ball above your feet. From down in the valley, the green looks a bit closer to the edge than it really is and clubbing up one seems like the play. A lot of approaches end up short of the green on the uphill. To get solidly on the green, I recommend clubbing up two, make a nice smooth swing, but don't be shy.

The previous tip was posted before the new routing (flipped nines). The new hole 5 is the old hole 14. It's a slight dog leg right, par 5. The tee shot is to a wide open fairway, but stay middle to left side to avoid trying to work around a huge ash tree. If you go for it, be aware of the bunkers guarding the front and the restroom just to the right of the green. Putts running away from the dam will be noticeably faster.